Quite a Pair
by RositaLG
Summary: "You've had those sunglasses for six years. Why would you just give them to Hannah like that?" "I loved you for six years and I let her have you, didn't I?" B/B


**Disclaimer: I don't own 1x15 OR 6x5. I just build my own little fantasy world around them.**

"_Would you back down Temperance? If you thought you were working on something important?"_

"_No." She smiled. "No I wouldn't."_

"_Well, aren't we a pair?" Hannah asked as she wiggled the sunglasses in her fingers before putting them on. "I guess Seeley's going to have to resign himself to being worried as long as we're both around."_

"_We are. We are quite a pair"_

She couldn't help but chuckle at Hannah's statement. It was the same thing that she had always said to Booth, usually after they finished a dangerous case. The first time had been when he had escaped the hospital to save her life. She had sat next to him, her own injuries making her feel tired and sore, and she had murmured: 'What a pair'. Ever since that day, whenever they had barely survived a case, were shaken, or covered in blood or bruises, one of them had always turned to the other, shaken his or her head and said: 'What a pair.' It was all it took to get the smiles back on their faces, at least momentarily. It was a little something that said 'We may be crazy, but we survived, and we've still got each other.' Brennan found comfort in the fact that Hannah had said it. If she were as superstitious as Booth, she might think that it was a little reminder that no matter what craziness was going on in her partnership right now, they still had each other, and that was something.

OOOOO

"Whoa, Bones. New shades?" Booth said as Brennan entered the lab reading a case file.

"Yes." She looked up only briefly, clearly focused on her task at hand. This latest case was giving her tunnel vision and every one of the squints had been charged, by both Cam and Booth, with keeping an eye on their distracted boss.

"What gives? I thought we'd have to bury you in that other pair." Booth smirked as Brennan walked by him.

"I gave them to Hannah." Brennan explained as she walked quickly past Booth and towards her office. Booth looked at his partner and then turned to Angela for an explanation.

"She did." Angela said, not knowing what else to say.

"Why would she give Hannah her favorite pair of sunglasses?" Booth asked. "She's had them for almost as long as I've known her."

"Apparently, she went to visit Hannah in the hospital without a gift. Hannah explained that it wasn't 'culturally appropriate with the typical mores of our society' to show up empty handed and she requested Brennan's glasses so Brennan handed them over, right off the top of her head." Booth stared at Angela, still confused. "Hey, don't look at me, she's your girlfriend. I would have been satisfied with her saving my life." She said as she made her way back to her office to continue her work. Booth turned and headed off to Brennan's office to ask more questions. She was already standing over her desk when he shut her office door.

"I think that we're going to need to visit the crime scene one more time so we can match the fragments to a possible murder weapon. It's completely unique whatever it is." She said as she shuffled through the files on her desk and reached for a different one.

"Okay. Bones, will you stop for just a second and explain something to me?" She gave him her attention. "You've had those sunglasses for like, six years." Booth said. "Why would you just hand them over?"

"They're just sunglasses Booth." She said, trying to fight the annoyance that his nagging questions and her lack of sleep were building within her.

"You loved them." He said, as if that were reason enough. "You don't love a lot of objects in this world, but you loved those sunglasses."

"Yes. I did. But Hannah wanted them." Brennan said with a shrug before going back to the papers in front of her.

"Really?" Booth said, not understanding her rationale. "That's the reason. Hannah wanted them? You'd hand over something you loved for six years just because she decided she wanted them?"

"I loved you for six years and I let her have you, didn't I?" She mumbled absentmindedly as shuffled through the papers on her desk. Booth was taken aback by the mixture of nonchalance and bitterness in Brennan's voice. When he didn't answer, she looked up. His face was a mix of stone and shock. She hadn't realized that she had let her thoughts escape her mouth. "Booth…" She said, instantly feeling terrible as she realized that her words had left her mouth. He didn't say anything. He just held up his hand to stop her from speaking. Without a word, he turned and walked out of her office.

OOOOO

"Honey, he's just upset. He'll get over it and things will go back to the way they were."

"Of course he's upset! I compared him to a pair of sunglasses that I just tossed aside!" Brennan said as she paced back and forth in front of Angela, who had taken up residence on Brennan's couch. "How could I let something like that slip out of my mouth?" She asked.

"Maybe because you haven't slept in two days and you've been working non-stop." Angela said. "This is why you have to take better care of yourself, Bren. People get sloppy when they're not on top of their game. Although it is nice to see you being honest about your feelings for once." She added.

"God, he must hate me." Brennan said. "If he had said those things to me, I would have…" She shook her head, still angry at herself.

"Do you want me to talk to him?" Angela asked. "I know for a fact he's at his office right now doing paperwork. I can stop by and see how he's feeling. Tell him how sorry you are." She offered. Brennan glanced over at her. "It's a two minute ride from the lab. Let me talk to him." Angela requested.

"I'm fairly certain that he won't want to see anyone right now." She said, knowing it was the truth.

"Since when has that ever stopped me?" She asked with a raise of her eyebrow.

OOOOO

Angela knocked on Booth's office door five minutes later. She opened it, knowing that he was alone and she refused to give him time to get his bearings. She needed the upper hand and he already had home field advantage on this one.

"Angela?" Booth was clearly not expecting to see her in his office.

"We need to talk." Angela said as she sat down across the desk from him.

"About what?" He asked.

"About Brennan's sunglasses." Booth got the same antsy look on his face when Sweets was about to ask some serious personal questions that he wanted to avoid. He was looking for an exit.

"What about them?" He asked.

"You know how hard she's been working lately Booth." She said. "It wasn't her fault that she got snippy. She hasn't slept more than two hours in the last two days."

"I know that." He sighed. "She's never said a mean word to anyone that didn't have it coming first." Booth said.

"She wants to apologize to you, but she's terrified of facing you."

"What does she think I'm going to do?" Booth asked sarcastically.

"Leave. She thinks you're going to leave. Ever since you came back with Hannah, she's been pretending to be happy for you, but deep down she's terrified that you're going to pick Hannah."

"What do you mean, pick Hannah?"

"You know exactly what I mean." Angela said. "She loves you Booth. In fact, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. She was in love with you _long_ before you fell in love with her."

"Angela…" Booth warned, not wanting to talk about that aspect of their relationship.

"No!" Angela said. "You have to know this. What Brennan said today was true. She let Hannah have you. I know that Hannah doesn't know what happened between you two, because if she did, she wouldn't be such good friends with Brennan." Angela said, catching Booth's guilty face. "But if she wanted to, she could bring down your relationship with Hannah so fast, your head would spin." Booth knew that it was true. He had kept Hannah in the dark because he knew that information like that would destroy his relationship with her. "And letting go, despite how much Brennan knows that you want or need to, comes with a cost… to her." She added. Booth sighed as he felt his blood begin to pound in his temples. He was at the end of his rope. Between finding out that the woman of his dreams had loved him for six years, his current girlfriend acting crazy, and the case in front of him, he couldn't take anymore.

"What do you want me to say, Angela?" Booth asked, wanting this conversation to end. "I asked her for more and she said no. So I moved on. I can't do anything else." Angela's furious look took him by surprise. She looked like she was about to hit him. It was then that he remembered that she was pregnant and hormonal. He had messed with the Mama bear and he was about to pay for it.

"You can't do anything else?" She said as she stood up. "Who the Hell are you and what did you do with Seeley Booth?" She asked. "You used to live for making things right. Now you have a chance to actually make things right with a woman that you love and you…"

"Ang…" He interrupted.

"No!" She yelled at him before taking a second to compose herself. This time when she spoke, her voice was lower in volume, but no less intense. "You've actually died for this woman before, do you remember that?" She hissed. "Now you can't even muster up enough energy to accept her apology?" She shook her head in disappointment. "I used to think the world of you, Booth. But right now, I can't even look at you." She said as she walked out of the office. Booth winced as his door slammed shut behind her.

OOOOO

Booth sighed as he knocked quietly on Brennan's door. She had almost thought that she had dreamt it because it was so uncharacteristically quiet. She got out of bed and wandered out into the hallway, checking to make sure it was him. She waited a second before opening the door.

"Hi." He said. "They've found the rest of the missing bones from the body."

"It's five in the morning." She said.

"I know." He said.

"No, I mean, it's five and you are dressed and awake." She said, taking him in.

"Let's just say I wasn't sleeping." He said, leaving it at that.

"I wasn't either." She said as she let him in. Seeing his tired face, she suddenly felt responsible for his pain all over again. "Booth, I'm so sorry about..." She started.

"Don't worry about it." He said, brushing her off coolly. "I'll start making the coffee, you go get dressed." He made his way to the kitchen and started getting out the coffee. She paused to stare at his back. "We're fine, Bones. Go." He said without turning around. She didn't move. He sighed and turned around to see her staring at him.

"Why won't you let me apologize to you?" She asked.

"Because it's unnecessary." He said, his tone letting her know that she didn't want to talk about it.

"It's really not." She said. "I was terrible."

"Bones!" He said, desperate to get her to stop talking. "I can't listen to it. Okay?" He said, hoping that would satisfy her.

"Why not?"

"Will you please, just, go get ready? There's a bunch of FBI techs out there, stomping through your crime scene. The longer you take, the more damage is done." He said, knowing that would get her to get moving.

"Don't change the subject." She said. "And they're fine. I've already been to the crime scene once and after six years, they can manage to get everything to the Jeffersonian without me telling you to tell them to do so." She added. Booth rolled his eyes at being deemed the middle man at his own crime scene. "Why won't you let me apologize?" She repeated her question.

"Because you didn't do anything wrong." He said quietly.

"I hurt you." She said, knowing it was true.

"I hurt you worse." He said, knowing how immature his argument sounded. "And I never apologized for it."

"Booth, that's…"

"It's true." He said, looking in her eyes. She shook her head.

"I was going to say different." She said. "You were just trying to move on."

"I was. I was trying to move on from you." He said. "God, what the Hell was I thinking?" He asked her. Brennan wasn't sure if she was supposed to answer, but she refrained, hoping that was the right thing to do. "I broke up with Hannah." He said.

"What?" The word flew out of her mouth before she had a chance to control it.

"Last night." He said. "After what you said yesterday and after Angela visited my office last night, I realized that I was trying so hard to be happy that I was actually hurting the people that I love most in this world. And if I had actually been happy, it might have been worth it, but I wasn't." He said. "I couldn't pretend anymore."

"Sort of like me yesterday?" She asked dejectedly as she sat down on her couch.

"God, what happened to us?" He asked her as he joined her.

"I don't know." She said. They both stared blankly ahead, contemplating their past. "We grew apart." She offered weakly. It was the best that she could do.

"Well I don't like it." Booth decided. "I've missed you. I want my best friend back."

"Me too." She said. "Our close partnership relies on our relative proximity to one another."

"English?" Booth asked, exhausted by the last 24 hours' events and not wanting to think anymore.

"We were close because we were connected in each other's lives on a daily basis. We can't be close if we are on other sides of the world." She said. "As soon as I got to Maluku, I knew that I had made a serious mistake in leaving. In my attempts to salvage our partnership, I made it worse." She said.

"Well, I came home with a girlfriend in an attempt to replace you, so I think I'm the one to blame here." Booth said.

"Booth! I was the one who said no and started this whole thing in motion!"

"I shouldn't have asked you for anything more like that in the first place!" They silently had a staring contest for a second, each wanting to take full responsibility for their role in this mess. Brennan scoffed and shook her head, realizing just how ridiculous the two sounded.

"God, what a pair." She murmured the well-worn phrase out of habit. Just like clockwork, Booth felt the small smile appear on his face as he turned to look at her. He wrapped his arm around her and she leaned her head on his shoulder. It was an instinctive action, but it was all that it took to ignite the hope for a return to normalcy. Sure, they were crazy, but they weren't a complete lost cause like they had thought a few hours earlier. No matter what had transpired between them, there was still something connecting them, a bond that was stronger than whatever they were facing. They were in this together.

"Yep." Booth agreed. "Quite a pair."


End file.
